alpha news

ISSUE 26 | APR 2013

The 5 hottest IT trends of 2012 so far

Alpha Data attains Gold level polycom choice

distinction

How to thrive in the era of BYOD

Discover Windows Server 2012

Alpha Data AV Solutions for Education – Borderless Education

In a Class of Their Own…

For more information about Alpha Data’s Educational AV solutions please contact: +971 2 6114224or email at: [email protected]

Nothing can substitute the educational benefits of interacting one-to-one with your students, but for millennia we have been limited by the class size and the local geography of who we can teach.With the latest ‘AV for Education’ solutions, you can connect interact and share information in a very personal and direct way – almost as if you were in the room – with the latest visual and audio aids, from Alpha Data. Offer the personal and very visual touch to all your distance learning activities and convey your teachings to multiple numbers of students around the globe – in a truly world-class (room) environment!

HEADLINE

PAGE 3 | ALPHA NEWS | APR 2013

FVC, Polycom’s authorised VAD across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, has announced that Alpha Data, its authorised partner in the United Arab Emirates, has been named Gold Level Polycom Choice Partner. In its continued pursuit of providing a high level of service to Polycom customers in the UAE, Alpha Data invested in its technical expertise and go-to-market capabilities to become Gold Level Polycom Choice Partner.

Ziad Sultan, ELV Division Manager for Alpha Data, said, “We are obviously very pleased to have earned this accolade. This enhances Alpha’s reputation in the local Unified Communications (UC) market and we are thankful to Polycom for this.”

Waleed Heloo, FVC’s General Manager, for GCC and Pakistan, said: “We congratulate Alpha Data on receiving this Gold level Polycom choice distinction;. “FVC has been partnered with Alpha Data for more than 6 years and we hope that we will continue to work together to provide the level of support that today’s enterprises demand from its UC solutions.”

Together, Polycom and its partners deliver the most complete video collaboration solutions available to more than 400,000 customers. Polycom’s Choice Partner Program emphasises skills development, specialisation, and other value-added activities that help partners support the needs of their customers and improve the customer experience.

Polycom's Choice Partner Program is part of the Polycom Partner Network, an extensive eco-system representing nearly 7,000 channel and alliance partners that embrace and extend Polycom's open standards-based video collaboration solutions. Polycom provides open, standards-based UC solutions for telepresence, video, and voice powered by the Polycom®RealPresence™ Platform. Polycom®RealPresence™ video solutions interoperate with the broadest range of business, mobile, and social applications and devices.

UAE’s Alpha Data Attains Gold Level PolycomChoice Distinction

Alpha Data trading on success of Dubai Gold & Commodity Exchange’s New Platform

With an average of over 2.7 million contracts at an average annual value of USD114.7 billion, since its inception in 2005, the Dubai Gold and Commodity Exchange (DGCX) has quickly established itself as a significant regional and international exchange in the last seven years.

With such rapid success, however, comes the need to keep pace with the changes, demands, and trading volumes of an international exchange and to maintain and continue DGCX’s expansion strategy into global markets, Alpha Data was chosen and the preferred partner to overhaul their systems and applications platforms.

Conducted by Alpha Data’s team, the project involved creating a completely new IT infrastructure including work on its data centres, switches and firewalls, as well as adding a DR site, which was previously not present with the legacy technology.

One of the immediate gains realised from this project is that the DGCX can now o�er a trading capacity of more than 10 times the previous infrastructure would allow. From start to finish, the project was conducted in only three weeks and deployed HP DL 380 G8 servers and Red Hat Enterprise Licenses.

Commenting on the completion of the project, managing director of Alpha Data, Fayez Ibbini, said: “We are pleased to have played our part in helping DGCX realise its next stage in growth and development and with Alpha being chosen as systems integrator for this project, it further demonstrates the technical skills of our team and the strong emphasis we place on building trust and strong relationships with all our clients.”

HEADLINE


Alpha bags prestigious awards in Adobe Channel Awards 2012

Alpha Wins EMEA Service Provider Best Partner Of The Year by Juniper Networks

Alpha Data receive Top Gun and Top Performer 2012 awards at Adobe Channel Awards 2012.

Alpha Data has been awarded the EMEA Service Provider Best Partner Of The Year by Juniper Networks MEA.

"On behalf of the Juniper Networks MEA Team, we would like to congratulate Alpha Data for winning the EMEA Service Provider Best Partner Of The Year. Your commitment and dedication led to your outstanding performance in 2012!. We are honored and proud for our partnership and look forward in driving a strong 2013 in both Enterprise and Service Provider."

- Juniper Networks.

PRODUCTS


Discover Windows Server 2012

With Windows Server 2012, Microsoft delivers a server platform built on our experience of building and operating many of the world's largest cloud-based services and datacenter. Whether you are setting-up a single server for your small business or designing a major new datacenter environment, Windows Server 2012 will help you cloud-optimise your IT support so you can fully meet your organisation's unique needs.

O�ers a dynamic, multi-tenant infrastructure to help you scale and secure workloads and build a private cloud. Windows Server 2012 can help you provide: Complete Virtualization PlatformA fully-isolated, multi-tenant, environment with tools that can help guarantee service level agreements, enable usage-based chargeback, and support self-service delivery. Improved Scalability and PerformanceA high-density, scalable, environment that you can modify to perform at an optimum level based on your needs. Connecting to Cloud ServicesA common identity and management framework that enables highly secure and reliable cross-premises connectivity.

Delivers a highly available and easy to manage cloud-optimised platform. Windows Server 2012 can help you provide: Flexible Storage Diverse storage choices that can help you achieve high performance, availability, and storage resource e�ciency through virtualisation and storage conservation. Continuous Availability New and improved features that provide cost-e�ective, highly available services with protection against a wide range of failure scenarios. Management E�ciency Automation of a broad set of management tasks and simplified deployment of workloads, as you move toward full, lights-out, automation.

O�ers a cloud-optimised server platform that gives you the flexibility to build and deploy applications and websites on-premises, in the cloud, or across both. Windows Server 2012 can help you deliver: Flexibility to Build On-Premises and in the Cloud A consistent set of tools and frameworks that enables developers to build symmetrical or hybrid applications across the datacentre and the cloud. A Scalable and Elastic InfrastructureNew features to help you increase website density and e�ciency, plus frameworks, services, and tools to increase the scalability and elasticity of modern applications. An Open Web and App Development EnvironmentAn open platform that enables mission-critical applications and provides enhanced support for open standards, open-source applications, and various development languages.

BEYONDVIRTUALIZATION

THE POWER OFMANY SERVERS, THESIMPLICITY OF ONE

EVERY APP,ANY CLOUD

TRENDS


As part of what we do at TechRepublic we talk to a lot of CIOs who are planning budgets, IT professionals who are planning projects, and IT vendors who are selling products. That gives us a lot of valuable insights into which way the winds are blowing in IT. With that in mind, it’s time to take a look at the IT trends that had the most momentum behind them, in 2012. Let’s count them down.

Employees are more mobile than ever. There are a lot of factors driving this trend, including increased migration to a work life balance where people leave early to pick up their kids and then work the rest of the afternoon from a cafe or in the stands at a football pitch. There are also industries such as transportation and health care that have always had lots of non-desk employees and have had to shoe-horn computing solutions into their work environments.

The growing capabilities of smartphones and tablets are filling many of these needs as these mobile devices become more able to do the tasks of a full PC. Still, there are times when workers can be even more productive when working with a full keyboard and mouse. That’s why we are beginning to see the rise of products like Motorola Webtop (a smartphone docking solution), Ubuntu for Android (desktop OS embedded in a smartphone), and Microsoft Surface (a tablet with a kickstand and keyboard cover). The lines between traditional PCs and mobile devices continue to blur.

Projects have always been a major part of IT, but in the past there was also a lot of IT resources dedicated to keeping the “lights on” and keeping the world running. Companies now take those operational aspects of IT for granted and want existing infrastructure automated as much as possible, and for as cheaply as possible. There’s little glory or job security in keeping the company’s existing systems on life support.

That’s why outsourcing and the cloud are such hot commodities. They allow companies to o�oad IT operational costs and focus their IT sta� on the next project to upgrade systems, streamline business processes, and launch new IT projects to transform the business. More than ever, IT is all about the projects. It’s about the vendors that can help support IT projects (and there are infrastructure jobs for IT pros there). It’s about the business analysts and project managers who can organise people and resources to pull o� projects on time and on budget. It’s about the CIOs who now base their budget and sta�ng decisions largely on projects rather than just the cost of keeping the server room running.

CONTINUED

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By Jason Hiner

4. PC / Mobile Convergence

5. The projectisation of IT

THE 5 HOTTEST ITTRENDS OF 2012

THEPROJECTIZATIONOF IT5.

4.3.2.1.

PC / MOBILECONVERGENCE

DESKTOPTHINNING

BIGDATA

CLOUD, CLOUDAND CLOUD

TRENDS


Let’s be honest, the proliferation of mobile devices and the ‘Bring Your Own Device’ trend has created a lot of headaches and nightmare scenarios for the IT department. For companies that need stronger security and more control over the employee environment, one of the easiest answers to the problem is to move to solutions like desktop virtualisation or terminal services from vendors like: VMware, Citrix, and Microsoft.

That allows the IT department to create a standard environment with all the company apps that employees can access from a company PC, their home PC or laptop (over VPN), or even a tablet or smartphone. The environment looks and feels like a traditional PC but the apps and all the data remain on the company servers which is more secure and easier for the IT department to manage and troubleshoot. This technology has been around for years, as “thin clients.” But there are three factors driving it forward in 2012: 1) BYOD2) mobile devices 3) Delays PC upgrades since it pushes all of the heavy lifting to the servers. So companies still are not going to “thin clients” in large numbers, but their desktop environments are getting a lot thinner.

If “Cloud Computing” has been the overhyped and overused IT term of the last several years, the new buzz phrase of 2012 is “Big Data.” Like “Cloud”, the term “Big Data” is regularly abused by marketers. The main thing you need to understand when it comes to Big Data is that it’s about bringing together the “structured” internal data that your company has always used for its reports and mixing it with public “unstructured” data like social media streams and freely available government data (on tra�c, agriculture, crime, etc.).

The act of combining these two types of data can give you new insights into how your customers feel about your products versus your competitors (from the social media streams), it can help you anticipate changes in product demand, it can help you use government trending data to anticipate the growth or decline of markets, and more. That’s why Big Data is such a big deal. But, don’t be fooled. It’s still in its infancy. There are not a ton of great commercial tools yet that can help you harness Big Data. It takes the right IT pros who know how to work some data magic, and they are in high demand.

There are essentially three types of clouds: the full Internet cloud (some call it the “public cloud”); the private cloud (which looks a lot like a traditional data center, but with lots of virtualisation); and the hybrid cloud (an integrated mix of public and private clouds). Make no mistake, all three types of clouds are thriving in 2012. The public cloud is the one that most people think of when they hear “cloud”, and it’s mostly about hosted apps like Salesforce.com and Workday.com, as well as internet-hosted infrastructure like Rackspace, and Amazon AWS. But, we’re increasingly seeing traditional IT players like Microsoft, IBM, and HP quietly become big players in the cloud as well.

The private cloud and the hybrid cloud are for larger companies and organisations that need stronger security or have legacy apps that are not easily moved or migrated to the cloud. Both of these types of cloud solutions are picking up steam, especially in companies that have already moved their easy stu� to the cloud and are now digging in and dealing with some of the big, expensive, entrenched stu�.

4. Big Data

5. Cloud, cloud and cloud

3. Desktop Thinning

FEATURE


By Chris Kozup

How to thrive in the era of BYOD

While there has been a lot of discussion on the Bring Your Own Device trend, it’s still relatively early to assess the actual impact BYOD is having on organisations. While the concept of Bring Your Own Device is based on individuals having the freedom to use their computing device of choice – the business and IT ramifications are much broader. From a business perspective, the impact of consumer technology on business process has never been greater. Leaders and laggards will be defined by how well each incorporates the use of consumer technologies to transform internal and external communications, supply chains, talent sourcing and retention, and innovation and product development. From an IT perspective, it’s no longer enough just to keep up – IT is being asked to lead.

IT visionaries are not only those who understand technology trends but are those who are successful in using them to gain competitive advantage. In the area of BYOD, this means more than keeping track of the latest mobile devices to hit the market. It means integrating devices, applications, and users in a way that allows an improvement in existing processes. To date, the majority of realised benefits from BYOD come in the area of cost savings. But increasingly, we are seeing savvy organisations enable new applications or ways of working that were previously not possible.

The promise of cost savings has been enough to lure many organisations into embracing BYOD; especially in times of shrinking IT budgets. Firstly, the BYOD phenomenon is shaking up the winners and losers in the device landscape. The Windows-Intel dominance that has ruled the end user computing market for the past 30 years is in rapid decline. In fact, Apple iOS and Google Android now account for approximately 50% of all operating systems shipped for end user computing devices. The traditional view of the desktop has been changed forever and IT must now reassess how budgets – previously spent on Windows-Intel devices – can be reallocated.

A recent Aruba Networks survey, BYOD in Europe, Middle East and Africa: An Overview of Adoption, Challenges and Trends, surveyed 773 companies to find that while 92% of companies still purchase laptops for employees, only 70% purchase smartphones and an even lower 51% purchase any kind of tablet device. This data illustrates two things: Firstly, not every organisation has completely warmed up to BYOD (although 69% of organisations in EMEA already allow some form of BYOD today). Secondly, and perhaps more important, is the fact that organisations are shifting the cost liability for mobile devices from the business to the individual. IT is recognising that end users are willing to pay for the convenience of using their own device. In general though, corporations still o�er employees the option of having a corporate-issued laptop; however, companies can save money by allowing employees to “opt out” of the corporate issued devices to bring their own.

CONTINUED

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FEATURE


The BYOD trend is also driving cost savings in the area of infrastructure investment. Some investment in building a robust wireless network is required. The Aruba Networks BYOD survey found that 35% of organisations in EMEA expect to improve coverage and capacity of their wireless network to support BYOD initiatives. Furthermore, 53% of organisations indicated they anticipate an increase in wireless investment in the coming year. However, these incremental investments pale, relative to the savings that organisations can realise when evolving their network design from a legacy switched data network to a mobility-centric architecture.

More specifically, as users shift their device preferences from desktops, laptops and desk phones – all typically connected to the network via an Ethernet cable – towards smartphones and tablets – which don’t even have the possibility of connecting to Ethernet, the need for investment in wired technologies decreases dramatically. Aruba Networks has seen examples of companies saving up to 50% of their network expenditure based on a reduction in Ethernet switch ports. These savings can be used to augment wireless coverage, but also to contribute to other higher priority projects.

Still, while cost savings are important, the real value of a comprehensive BYOD strategy lies in the transformation of business process. Some early examples of interesting use cases for BYOD are emerging as organisations find their way.

One example of how organisations are benefitting from BYOD is in how employees communicate and collaborate. Tablet devices like the iPad or the Galaxy make the integration of voice, video and data easy. These devices blur the lines of traditional communications where video, voice and data were once carried over separate networks to distinct endpoints. There are many examples of CEOs providing iPads to their management teams as a way to improve communications using applications like Apple FaceTime for high quality video conferencing. Imagine the administrative assistant armed with an iPad and a direct FaceTime link to the CEO approaching any other employee in the building, allowing the CEO to have an ad hoc face-to-face meeting. This type of spontaneous, yet high quality, communications was previously cost prohibitive or simply not possible.

The shift from IT-provisioned to user-supplied is not limited to mobile devices. The promise of BYOD extends into the application arena as well. With the advent of new smartphones and tablets comes the arrival of the applications (app) store. This, perhaps more than mobile devices, represents a challenge and opportunity for IT. For decades, organisations have employed armies of application developers whose job was to automate business process with computing logic. The desire

CONTINUED

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FEATURE


for di�erentiation and the need for tailored applications generated significant man-hours of work – literally creating entire communities of skilled workers capable of coding at a moment’s notice. Yet over time, this also crippled many organisations faced with the challenge of managing thousands of unique applications.

The BYOD phenomenon promises to transform how organisations develop and deliver applications. Many organisations are already shifting their application development to favour more mobile operating systems. Yet IT must also evaluate the risk and reward of sourcing ready-made applications from consumer-oriented application stores. A recent count of applications under the “Productivity” category on the iTunes app store showed over 7,500 applications available for download. Aruba Networks has come across numerous examples of customer employees downloading (and paying for) app store applications to be used at work. This turns the established approach of application development and management upside-down.

While the rise of the app store presents obvious challenges to IT – whose task it is to manage and maintain enterprise applications – it can also be beneficial. Consider how employees can transform the way they work by freely sourcing new productivity-enhancing applications. On the one hand, IT should remain close to this “BYOA” phenomenon to limit any broader negative impact on support costs and security. On the other hand, the business should monitor and embrace possible e�ciencies and improvements that may result from individual employees introducing time-saving applications into their existing work environment.

There’s little doubt that the consumerisation of IT is having a resounding e�ect on IT budgets, planning and operations. The growth in mobile devices and the decline in dominance of Windows-Intel based end user computing is the catalyst for change. Our reliance on mobile devices is growing, and in the last year alone, 1 in 3 organisations across EMEA saw the number of devices connecting to their network increase by at least 50%. The implications of this demand for mobile connectivity do not stop at the device and the network; rather, they extend into the very fabric of the business itself. Thus, as the army of mobile workers continues to grow, organisations are faced with a choice: lead or follow. A successful BYOD strategy requires a comprehensive view of not only the devices themselves, but of the users, applications and workflows that they enable. Armed with this information – and a little foresight – IT organisations can not only survive, but thrive in the era of Bring Your Own Device.

Source: http://www.itp.net/590231-how-to-thrive-in-the-era-of-byod/?tab=article

INTERVIEW WITH AN EXPERT


Dimitris Petinos has over 15 years of experience in the IT market and currently is the VP of Marketing and International Sales for MCOM Media Communications, one of the leading IT solution providers for hospitality, healthcare and telecom operators in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Dimitris holds an M.S. in Computer Engineering and an MBA.

Q: Lately we hear a lot about MCOM and the HOTstream solution.

Dimitris Petinos: Even though MCOM has been active in the Middle East for more than five years and luxury hotels are already using HOTstream, our flagship IPTV and Interactive TV solution, in 2012 we had some new developments that gave more visibility to MCOM. For example we’ve established a regional o�ce to further support our local partners, in addition to we introduced many new innovative solutions.

Q: Can you tell us more about the new solutions?

Dimitris Petinos: First of all, we fully migrated HOTstream solutions from the TV screens to a multi-screen environment, introducing HOTstream MultiScreen. Whether it is the in-room TV, their smart-phone, tablet or laptop, guests can now experience 3D and HD TV channels, Video-on-Demand movies, view their bill, order room service, make reservations to restaurants or spa, check the menu, have travel information and much more anywhere inside the hotel on their preferred devices. In parallel, we’ve expand our HOTstream branding and advertisement application to support all screens, enabling the hotel to encourage purchases, promote special o�ers and create new communication channels with their guests.

IPTV moves into the next dimension

Q: Will the multi-screen implementation increase complexity for the hotel?

Dimitris Petinos: Not at all, and this is the beauty of HOTstream design. HOTstream MultiScreen interfaces are based on web application frameworks that allow for easy integration. For HOTstream MultiScreen the user interface of di�erent devices (TV, mobile devices , laptops, and digital signage monitors) is a server based web application running on the same database and back-o�ce system. In other words, HOTstream MultiScreen platform uses a single centrally managed head-end to provide Hotel interactive services, IPTV, Video On Demand, High Speed Internet Access and digital signage to all di�erent screens.

Q: Can you also o�er HOTstream without set-top boxes?

Dimitris Petinos: Being always an innovator, MCOM had already designed HOTstream on HTML5, allowing us to make our hospitality solutions immediately available for the new LG Pro:Centric Smart Hotel TVs. We will o�cially launch this during Equip Hotel in Paris from 11th - 15th November. The combination of HOTstream and the newest LG Pro:Centric Smart Hotel TVs that support HTML 5, allows hoteliers to benefit from the state-of-the-art HOTstream technology, eliminating in parallel the need for an external set-top box. The complete portfolio of HOTstream features such as the built-in promotion and branding service with interactive advertisements, housekeeping, maintenance and guest interactive services, are available to all hotel guests through the newest LG LT770H and LT760H series.

HOTstream high definition user interface is customised according to the hotel’s branding, providing a unique experience for all guests. HOTstream's unique HD VOD movie catalogue is also available on the LG Pro:Centric Smart Hotel TVs.

We’ve Moved

1.

2.

3.

Use Exit No. 32 in Sheikh Zayed Road towards Abu Dhabi

Use Exit No. 32 in Sheikh Zayed Road towards Dubai

Follow Jumeirah Lake Tower Signs

We are pleased to announce that Alpha Data has moved its Dubai offices with the new location Jumeirah Lake Towers.

alpha news - april 2013

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